Wednesday, 25 June 2014

So I have been in Pozo for just over a week now and it has been perhaps a little unusual, with not much wind for the first week! I surfed a couple of times on the North Coast, and have sailed Vargas twice and Ojos de Garza. It has been pretty flat but I have been working on my forward technique, trying to get them really sideways so when I am overpowered I don't go endo! Here are a couple of go pro shots:

Gecko flaka:

Hooked in catapult-not sure where my other leg went?!

Now the wind has returned to Pozo, it is 3.4 to 3.7 weather absolutely full power and due to get windier, I forgot how full on this place is! It takes all you have to control your sailing.

Back in the UK we didn't have any wind, but did have a nice wakeboard session in Oxford when I visited a friend. It was a bridesmaid present from her wedding last year, thanks Rach! Beautiful weather and a lot of fun!

As promised, the girl's sailing in Maui video is also up! It had a premier at one of the American Windsurf Tour events, and has done really well promotion wise! This features a few of the top windsurfing girl's but there will be more episodes with the girl's that missed this one, so stay tuned!

Here are a couple of photos from Si Crowther of the premier and Carolina, Sarah and Sam who feature in it along with myself and some other girls!

Thursday, 5 June 2014

Its not all traveling on my 'dream' sabbatical! I have been working and training too (though admittedly only for 3 week periods..!). I signed up with 2 agencies to get the most work possible over the 3 weeks and have been working as a waitress at various hotels and events, a receptionist and a kitchen porter. I have been a KP before but this was worse, a 9 hour straight shift of soggy rubber glove hands scouring the worst dirty pans all day. Glad that's over!

In-between shifts it is really important I keep my fitness up, as I realised in Ireland, heat sailing is tiring and you need all the help you can get not to feel tired in Pozo, 2 sessions a day every day and you are shattered! There hasn't been any wind on the South Coast (I'm back in Surrey), for a while now that has coincided with a weekend, so for anyone interested, here is the training plan I have been using as I haven't been able to afford a gym.

Mix these up training every day if possible:

Anaerobic swim training. Warm up 10 lengths, then do 4x sets of 4x 25m lengths breathing every 5th stroke, with a minutes rest between each set. Repeat again breathing every 7th stroke (this gets hard!). Then swim one length underwater and breaststroke back, minutes rest, all x10. Swim 10 lengths front-crawl to finish.

I have also just ordered some TRX suspension bands (a cheap copy version though!) which are fairly new to me, but seem to be a great idea for a travelling work out and strength work for shoulders and core, I look forward to trying them!

This week I had some fun trying to book our kit onto our Thomas Cook Airline flight to the Canaries, who I have flown with many times before with numerous bags! This time however they said they had changed their policy and would only allow one bag per person, charging £15 per kilo for an extra bag (which would be near on £450!). It didn't say this anywhere on their website or the terms and conditions and after much arguing on skype a salesperson finally admitted that they had a more current version of the T&Cs which weren't on their website. I was pretty glad she admitted this on the phone and after nervous waiting and asking to speak to their manager, they rung back nice as pie and booked all my bags on! There was a lot of stress and skype credit, as the flights were 100% non refundable yet I knew I was in the right! So beware, check the T&Cs and make sure you can take all your gear on the flight! They said they would update their website shortly.

So my rant and warning advice is over! Soon I will get back to windsurfing, one more week and I'll be in Pozo! And if you want to check out my top 5 reasons why I windsurf, have a look HERE

About Me

I started windsurfing when I was 16 on family watersports holidays once a year. I got properly hooked on my gap year in the British Army in 2005, competing and training in Egypt, Holland and the UK. During this year I saved some money for my own kit and in 2006 started studying aerospace engineering at Southampton University, joining the windsurf club. Sailing around the South coast with lots of friends provided lots of competition, and competing all around the country against other Universities in the Student Windsurf Association events gave me an appetite for competing. For the last couple of years at University I competed in the UK wave circuit, travelling to Wales, Ireland and Scotland. In 2010 after University I secured a job with a big engineering firm, Babcock, but managed to get a deferred entry and sailed in Brazil, Maui and the Canaries, competing in my first PWA event in Gran Canaria. Now I live and work in Plymouth in the UK and sail and surf as much as possible around my job.